Emily St. John Mandel's 'Station Eleven' among PEN/Faulkner Prize finalists

The finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Prize were announced Tuesday morning in Washington, and Emily St. John Mandel’s marvelous dystopian novel, Station Eleven, is among them.

Station Eleven (Knopf) has been scooping up accolades left and right this year: it was a finalist for the National Book Award in November, and is on the longlist for England’s Baileys Women’s Prize. The book describes a world crumbling after a Georgia flu pandemic, which has obliterated 99 percent of the population.

According to a statement from PEN/Faulkner Fiction Prize judges Alexander Chee, Marc Fitten, and Dierdre McNamer, “The finalists we chose are writing some of the best of American fiction now—urgent and profound work that is deeply engaged with our world, even as it redefines what we call ‘American fiction,’ and what we think of as America.” Below, the rest of the finalists:

• Jeffery Renard Allen, Song of the Shank (Graywolf)
• Jennifer Clement, Prayers for the Stolen (Hogarth)
• Atticus Lish, Preparation for the Next Life (Tyrant)
• Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation (Knopf)

The winner of the $15,000 prize will be announced April 7, and the remaining finalists will each receive $5,000. B.J. Novak (of The Office, and author of One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories) will host the 35th annual PEN/Faulkner Award ceremony on May 2, which will be held at Washington’s Folger Library.